Sept 13th rides

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Enjoy your new better zippy bike, Corsair!

Go up early, ready to bike into town for coffee and to buy fresh bread and greens, etc...then it started RAINING and was yucky out.
Bundled up and walked down instead- haven't done that in a while.
A young ponytailed man sat next to me at the cafe counter while I had breakfast. After a while he said "Hey you ride a lot of long distance bike, don't you?" I asked why he asked, and he said he sees me on the road when he drives around the area, and I'm usually miles from town, in various other towns on my bike. Too funny really, because those other towns are not so far away, maybe only 10 or 20 miles away! And my all time longest ride so far is a modest 40 miles. But I accepted the compliment anyway, and it felt cool to be thought of by someone as a "long distance biker".

[Kano]

DH came home this afternoon, and I asked him, "so, if I ask you about going down to George's and getting my derailleur fixed thsi afternoon, you're probably going to say NOOOOOOOOOOOOoo aren't you?" and he said "YES!" I then said, "you mean we can?" He said, "no, I meant yes, I was going to say NOOOOOOO"

However, he changed his mind, and I said, long as we're loading up the bikes and going down town, how about we ride some of the greenbelt after we're done at George's?

So, I've got my low gears back, which is good (got yours fixed yet, Tater?) and he's got his handlebars tight again (he's been putting that off) and we had a 14.5 mile ride at an average of 14.1mph. That's a personal best by a LOT! We started by the zoo, which meant we had close to a mile on each end of the ride that's pretty high traffic on the path, so our speeds were fairly slow for a while. But, slow is 10mph now, and I remember that being "like a rocket" when we started this spring!

(isn't nostalgia fun?)

Karen in Boise

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Kano that's a cute story.

[Kano]

Thanks, Lisa! I just re-read it, and noticed I forgot the part where he said "AAARGH!" at the idea of a ride too!

Poor guy, I don't think he expected me to LOVE riding when he decided it would be a good thing for us to do when there's no skiing! "For exercise" he says. He tells people I drag him out and keep him at this. Since he's riding "for exercise" rides fast and hard "to get it over with." He'd happily ride once a week, do way too many miles that day, and figure that was a good thing.

I also forgot to mention that while they were fixing whatever on his bike, my feet just happened to wander me off to the road bike department. Probably because they have a "chick magnet" display right inside the front door, to start us women drooling, you know? (Ruby Comp - black - and two Cannondales yesterday) "Come on," he said when he finally found me, "you don't belong back here." (yes, I knew there would be no bike buying yesterday, and he had a bit of a resigned sense of humor -- he knows, and is simply trying to slow me down...) So I lovingly petted the prettiest ones, and something drew him to a strange brown Cannondale touring bike that he needed to pet, and then off we went for our ride!

Oh -- I just noticed: it's almost the time of day when stores are opening up! That means it's almost time! I need to get some knickers today, since it's the first day of the cool weather riding season! (and then I'll have to try them out, right?)

Karen in Boise

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

So I lovingly petted the prettiest ones, and something drew him to a strange brown Cannondale touring bike that he needed to pet, and then off we went for our ride!

Oh -- I just noticed: it's almost the time of day when stores are opening up! That means it's almost time! I need to get some knickers today, since it's the first day of the cool weather riding season!

Too funny!!! I totally understand. Me and my husband are sort of like that. Mysterious packages always arriving in the mail...mine usually contain biking clothes, his contain various gears and brackets and pedals and such...but we seem to have developed a non-spoken aggrement to not ask each other too many details about the contents. Now he just says "Sweetheart, package alert from Team Estrogen!" and I say "Sweetheart, package alert from Shimano!"....
He thinks "Team Estrogen" is a pretty funny name. Does kinda make it seem like I'm getting online hormone replacement therapy. Sigh..well, these lycra SheBeest pants DO make me feel younger and sexier...so I guess it IS a "sort of" hormone therapy.

[uk elephant]

No big ride for me on Wednesday. Did circuit training with some people at work instead to give my butt a little break from the bike. But I did cycle back to the station late in the evening after a massive thunderstorm had just passed. It was pitch black on the bike path and I had forgotten to bring my bike light so I could barely see where I was going. I've gone up and down that path every day to work since January so I know it well enough and I figured I'd notice if I got off the path as it is edged by big prickly bramble bushes most of the way. I just took it slow and made use of the occasional lightning flashes in the distance to see. Made it safely back to the station and even saw a bat fly past along the way.

[Duck on Wheels]

Hey there UK, I thought you said you couldn't write well. I love reading your posts.

Ok, so I'm biased. But I do know good writing. Anybody else out there think UK could earn some money for her ALC ride by doing a series for the local paper or something? A page on "what on Earth have I got myself into?", one on "finding a saddle I can ride for 6 days", one on "hill practice without hills", and finally a diary from the event itself?